How Would You Improve This 3D Printed Steadicam?

This is where I really appreciate the facility of having a 3D printer in the home. Instead of chocking up a couple hundred bucks for a semi-pro steadi-cam or building another make-shift camera holder with off-the-shelf parts, print the major components and bolt them together. We just couldn’t wait to put this on Cool Tools of Doom, so here it is, a 3D Printed Steadi-cam. Of course, the entire thing isn’t 3D printed, but you do get the part list and files to make your own. What we’re really wondering though, is how you would make it better?

Lights, Camera, DIY Steadicam

There are a lot of different DIY steadi-cam designs floating around out there on the internet and although this one doesn’t look all that pretty, it’s a starting point for where you could take you amateur action-shooting tool set.

This Steadicam has a single axis gimbal with the fork and gimbal being the only 3D printed components. The rest of the build is not unlike the parts needed for any other DIY steadicam. Even thought it’s all pretty basic, I see a few ways where this design could be improved immediately.

By changing the Gimbal to a set of rings, you would increase the degrees of freedom, allowing you more movement.

The fork could be modified to attached to a grip or to an attachment used on a bike or helmet.

A rotating offset counterweight platform would be an additional 3D printed feature that could really make this functional for a wider variety of cameras.

I’m sure there’s more that could be done with this design. How would you improve it?

Josh is founder and editor at SolidSmack.com, founder at Aimsift Inc., and co-founder of EvD Media. He is involved in engineering, design, visualization, the technology making it happen, and the content developed around it. He is a SolidWorks Certified Professional and excels at falling awkwardly.